500 held in fresh Estonia riots

More than 500 people were detained and 66 injured after a second night of riots in Estonia's capital Tallinn.

Police fired tear gas and used water cannon after new clashes erupted over the Government's decision to remove a Soviet war memorial revered by minority Russians.

Police say some 50 premises were damaged as groups of vandals roamed the streets of Tallinn, breaking shop windows and looting stores.

Unrest also spread to the towns of Kohtla-Jarve and Johvi, around 180 kilometres east of the capital, with more than 40 people detained there.

In the first night of rioting, beginning Thursday, one person died and 56 were injured, including 12 police.

Estonian police say nearly 1,000 people have been arrested during the unrest.

The trouble was sparked by the Estonian government's plan to remove a World War II statue - dubbed the Bronze Soldier - and exhume a number of Soviet soldiers buried next to it in downtown Tallinn.

Estonia's Russians - less than one-third of the country's 1.3 million population - regard the monument as a shrine to Red Army soldiers who died fighting the Nazis, but ethnic Estonians consider it a painful reminder of hardships during a half-century of Soviet rule.

The monument's dismantling has also sparked protests in Moscow and other Russian cities.

The Estonian government has said the statue had become a public order menace as a focus for Estonian and Russian nationalists.

Russia, which has had troubled ties with Estonia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, has condemned the removal of the monument.

President Vladimir Putin today expressed his "most serious concern" to German chancellor Angela Merkel - who holds a rotating chairmanship in the European Union - about events surrounding the statue's removal.

"In response, Merkel spoke in favour of finding a prompt solution to the situation and of both sides exercising restraint," a Kremlin press release said.

The Russian foreign ministry has also demanded that Estonian authorities conduct a full probe into the death of the person killed on Thursday.